Page 25 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

25

London, October 4, 2024

Iris

I eat dinner with Rahul and his handsome husband, Anthony, while Elle fiddles with the stove.

“I’ve seen one of these stoves before.” Elle’s voice echoes. She’s bent over, head practically shoved inside. “I never had to use it, though. But I bet I can figure it out. I have an affinity for old things.”

I want to help her, or even just watch her, but I can’t get up from the table while there’s any remaining food. “Oh my god, Anthony, this is all so good.”

He beams. He’s a big dude, tall and broad and thick, but so warm that his bigness translates as comforting instead of intimidating. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure about your spice tolerance, so we went easy.”

“Embarrassingly low, but I promise I’m working on it. Are you sure you don’t want some, Elle?” Soon there won’t be any left. It’s the best butter chicken I’ve ever tasted, sweet and savory at once, the chicken perfectly tender. I soak up more of the sauce with the rice and scoop with my naan, shoveling it all in, not even trying to be a little dignified.

“I ate before I came. And I have so many food allergies. Milk, nuts, eggs, corn, soy, rice—it’s a whole grocery list. I basically can’t eat anything I don’t make myself.”

“If you want to try, though, give me the list,” Anthony says confidently. “I can work with it, I promise. My sister’s allergic to shellfish, so we’re careful with cross-contamination.”

Elle’s head is fully inside the oven now. “Deal,” she says, her voice echoing metallically.

Rahul leans back in his chair. The supplies they brought me are piled in the corner. I’ve already paid them, but I feel like I still owe them. Rahul and Anthony had no reason to go out of their way to be nice to me, but they did. Already, I’m hatching a devious plan to thank Rahul and Anthony and stick it to Goldaming Life.

“I’ve never seen a fox behave that way,” Rahul continues, still fixated on the fox. Foxated. “They can be pests, sure, but never aggressive like that.”

“And it was so big.” Anthony holds out his enormous hands to demonstrate.

“Could be rabid.” Rahul frowns toward the front of the house. “You should call Animal Care and Control.”

I gesture to the useless brick on the table. “Would if my phone had any service here. Anyway,” I say, desperate to change the subject, “I’m sure it’s just territorial. It’s had this property to itself for a lifetime. Generations of its fox ancestors have lived and died here. We’re the invasive species, not it.”

Anthony slings an arm around Rahul. “Don’t worry, love. I’ll protect you on our way back to the car. I’m the only fox allowed to bite you.” He snaps his teeth and Rahul boos, but can’t hide his smile. There’s an ease of affection between them that makes my whole core ache with hollowness. No amount of delicious food could fill that void. I want to keep watching them, to soak them in. None of the adults in my life modeled supportive and loving relationships. I’m always drawn to people like Rahul and Anthony, as if proximity to healthy love will infect me with the ability to experience the same.

“Maybe it was a fox that jumped through the window, not a wolf,” I say, before they notice my besotted gaze.

“A wolf?” Anthony asks. “What wolf?”

“He didn’t grow up around here. I never told him the story,” Rahul says.

“Let me!” I clap my hands, turn on my show-person voice. It’s perfectly pitched and crafted to command an audience. All those public speaking classes my mom made me take are good for something, at least. “One hundred and thirty years ago, a wolf escaped from the zoo. Unhappy with merely running away or hunting unfortunate house pets, it prowled through the neighborhoods, searching. Seeking. Until it found this house, jumped through a bedroom window, literally scared a woman to death, and then, mission accomplished, went right back to the zoo.”

Anthony looks appropriately horrified. “That’s quite the field trip.”

“Do we think the Victorians trained wolves as assassins?” Rahul scratches his beard thoughtfully. “Wait, was that the Victorian era? Edwardian? I can’t keep them straight.”

“Where are you from, Elle?” Anthony asks. “I grew up in Redbridge. East London,” he clarifies for my sake, which is useless because I have no idea what part of London we’re in now anyway.

We all look at Elle and she straightens, leaning against the stove. Her slouchy, soft sweater has remained remarkably white, but there’s a smear of ash along her cheekbone. I want nothing more than to cross the kitchen and wipe it away with my thumb. Maybe linger on those apple cheeks. Maybe trace my thumb down and press it against her lips. Maybe…

Elle gestures vaguely toward the neighborhood around us. “I’m from here.”

“I must ask,” Anthony says, “and I apologize for how rude it is, but if you’re working at the museum, you’ve at least finished university, right? How old are you?”

Elle’s lips twist in a sly smile that transforms her face from cherubic to painfully sexy. “Not a teenager, Anthony. But yesterday I was wearing an oversized jumper and a cap, and the café server offered me a children’s menu.”

“No!” I say.

She laughs. “It doesn’t bother me. I like that people assume I’m younger than I am. It makes them underestimate me.”

Anthony seems satisfied. “Okay, so if I bring wine the next time we all hang out, I’m not going to get in trouble for corrupting a minor?”

Elle’s laugh is less chiming than it is deliciously wicked. “There’s nothing any of you could do to corrupt me at this point.”

I’m both thrilled that Anthony is already planning a future hangout and also desperate to get Elle to talk more on the subject of corruption, but Rahul stands and holds out a hand to Anthony. “We should get a wiggle on and relieve your sister at the restaurant.”

“Who knew this job would require so much cooking?” Anthony stands, too, then squeezes my shoulder in goodbye. I don’t want them to leave. They make the whole house feel warmer, more alive. I’m forever craving warmth, the need for it scarred onto both my soul and body.

“Call if the foxes get too frisky, or if a wolf pays a visit,” Rahul says.

“You’ll come save me?”

“God, no,” Anthony answers. “But we’ll cater the funeral for a discount.”

“Only a small discount, though,” Rahul points out. “We’re trying to save money.”

“In that case, charge my estate triple. I’ll be dead, what do I care?”

I follow Anthony and Rahul to the front of the house. Elle comes, too, much to my disappointment. I don’t want to be here alone, but I’ve only just met the three of them. I can’t exactly ask them to have a slumber party in an ancient, decrepit house with no electricity, cell service, or hot water.

This afternoon made me realize how long it’s been since I got to hang out with people, though. People who like me because they’re cool and kind. People my mother can’t bribe to stop talking to me.

I wave to Anthony and Rahul as they sprint for the gate to the street. They’re both laughing at the silliness of it, but they aren’t kidding around with how fast they’re moving. They’re spooked by the fox. They have good sense.

I shouldn’t let them come by again; not while I’m still here. I might want to be infected with their love, but the reality is I’m far more likely to infect their lives with my poison.

Elle lingers behind me, leaning against the banister. It’s not fair that I’m exposing her to Goldaming Life’s tentacles, either. But I’m selfish. I need her help, and I want her company.

Besides, I don’t think anything bad will happen. It’ll just be for a couple weeks. Surely that won’t be long enough to ruin her life. The most likely scenario is nothing happens and she never even hears about Goldaming Life. The next most likely scenario is she gets a windfall payout to stop talking to me. But the third most likely scenario…

God. I’m a monster, just like my mother. Putting Elle in a situation she can’t possibly understand or consent to. I open my mouth to tell her not to come back, that I’ve changed my mind about the whole thing. Instead, I find myself saying, “See you in the morning?”

Her face shifts with subtle surprise. For a moment I’m afraid she’s not planning on coming back. But it’s something even more upsetting: She wasn’t ready to leave yet. Before I can correct myself, she walks past me. It’s all I can do not to reach out and spin her into my arms. Tell her she should stay.

Tell her she should leave and never come back.

Elle looks over her shoulder at me. The turmoil on my face must be obvious, because she smiles in amusement. It’s baffling how she transforms with a simple twitch of her lips or quirk of her eyebrows. No wonder people can’t peg her age. I swear she’s a different person from one breath to the next, and I want to know them all.

“In the morning, then,” she says. “I’ll do some research tonight and we’ll get you that cash as soon as possible.” She glances up at Hillingham. I’m in the house’s throat, and as soon as I close the door, I’ll be swallowed again. It’s like she can sense it, too. “Be careful.”

“Of wolves?”

“And foxes, apparently.”

I give her my best No worries smile. It’s well-practiced, one of the many looks I honed through endless sessions in front of a mirror. I have a whole repertoire of them. The No worries. The Who, me? The I’m totally fine with what’s happening here and not screaming inside. And, my specialty, the I’m absolutely listening to what you’re telling me and I definitely agree. That one got a lot of use convincing Dickie to let me come here.

Elle hesitates, like she isn’t buying my reassurances. I’m touched by her concern, but it also sets off alarm bells. She can’t afford to care about me. I make a joke, my other go-to. “My only danger tonight will be hypothermia from taking a cold bath.” It’s a lie on so many levels, because there’s danger around me and even inside me, all the time.

I feel like I’ve won a prize, though, when Elle laughs. “I’ll bring a fix for that in the morning.”

“A water heater?” I ask.

“Even I have my limits.” She waves and strolls into the twilight, unconcerned about fox attacks. I watch until she disappears through the gate, swallowed up by the hedges that block the house from view.

The sigh that escapes my lips is so pathetic I can’t stand myself. Lord Byron is ringing through my head— She walks in beauty, like the night. He was an absolute bastard, and so am I for wanting Elle.

Though I had scouted out a bedroom, I opt to set up my bed on the den rug. It feels safer here—more potential exits. But the sleeping bag provides almost no padding between my bones and the boards. I’m paranoid that I’m going to get too cold, like the night air is death creeping closer, flowing sinister and ready through my veins. There’s no way I’m sleeping tonight.

As usual, I’m wrong. Foxes with razor teeth pull Rahul and Anthony into the hedges; wolves jump through the window and scream at me in my mother’s voice; Elle lies down on that disturbing bed in the back bedroom, then is slowly folded into it, all while looking at me with the saddest eyes.

I wake with a start from that one. The quiet acceptance in her gaze, as though she knew it would always end that way, haunts me right out of slumber. My relief at being awake quickly turns to dread, though. I can’t move. I can’t move.

Sleep paralysis has plagued me ever since I moved into that bedroom with the monster closets. I try my breathing and counting exercises. I wait anxiously for my body to catch up to my brain. But I still can’t move. All I can do is stare at where the moonlight is streaming in through the window. No. That’s wrong. The moonlight is streaming out. My eyes can barely process the wrongness of it, but the moonlight is moving of its own accord. It’s slipping away, dimming as it pours back through the window I left cracked open.

I let out a whimper. Everything freezes. The moonlight, the dust motes, the air itself. Like the whole house is holding its breath. It’s realized I’m awake, and that I know it’s awake, too.

I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again, the room is empty once more and I can move.

I sit up, freezing, heart racing. I can’t be cold, I can’t get cold, but the cold is always waiting for me, ready to kill me the way it killed my mother. Maybe it’s her. Maybe my dad was right. Maybe she’s come back to get her revenge.

I stumble to the window, slamming it shut. Then I grab my lantern and check the whole house, room by room. All the doors are locked, all the windows shut. Not a fox, a wolf, a dead mother, or an anthropomorphic moonbeam in sight.

When at last I return to the den, I know I’m alone. I can feel it, because it’s such a change from the sensation I had when I woke up.

But I don’t like this new feeling, either. Without my phone, there’s no way to distract myself. No shows to watch and lose myself in, no mindless scrolling. Just the cold and the fear and my own past creeping in the darkness.

I wish I could call Elle. That we could talk about nothing, fill the silence and the loneliness with each other’s voices. Instead, I open the safe and grab the floor journal. It seems like it has more potential to be interesting than the other one. I’ll take cleverly hidden over officially locked up any day. I’ve been both, and I definitely preferred hidden.

Then I curl up to live someone else’s life for a while. It’s got to be less of a nightmare than my own.